Swakop Uranium Dismisses 'Loose Allegations'Toivo Ndjebela29...

Swakop Uranium Dismisses 'Loose Allegations'
Toivo Ndjebela
29 June 2010

Windhoek Swakop Uranium, the Namibian subsidiary of Australia's Extract Resources, has reacted angrily to reports that it has done little to develop its Husab uranium project and could lose it to Russian investors as a result of such poor progress.

The fate of the Husab project, which until recently was known as Rssing South, has been shrouded in mystery, especially after reports in Australia suggested that Namibian State-owned company, Epangelo Mining and Russian company, Atomredmetzoloto (ARMZ), were eying the Husab project.

Reports suggested that Epangelo and ARMZ were waiting in the wings and ready to pounce on the Husab project, because the government of Namibia was purportedly becoming impatient with the lack of progress being made on what is believed to be one of the country's largest uranium deposits.

Chairman of Extract Resources Namibia, Steve Galloway, on the occasion of Swakop Uranium's first blast at Husab on Thursday last week, said there were "misconceptions in Australia" regarding his company's priciest asset.

"We are very serious about this project and it is absolutely unfounded that there's no progress made at the site so far," he said.

Norman Green, Chief Executive Officer of Swakop Uranium, echoed his chairman's sentiments: "I've never seen a mining project developing so fast, like this one."

The envisaged mine held its first on-site blast on Thursday last week at an event attended by Mines and Energy Minister, Isak Katali, and other senior ministry officials, including Permanent Secretary, Joseph Iita, and Mining Commissioner Erasmus Shivolo.

A visit to the site shows a host of activities going on, with geologists hard at work, while drilling and crushing is also the order of the day.

There are four drilling contractors on site and, following last week's blast, management is confident that the mine is well on track to production, following the discovery of uranium potential in February 2008.

The company, which currently spends about N$30 million a month on activities at the site, is in search for long-term partners to co-finance the expenditures.

"The board faces the challenge of finding partners, who would co-fund the operations. We want long-term investors," Galloway said.

Epangelo recently confirmed to New Era that it is interested in acquiring a stake in the Husab project and the company would be happy to hear that on Thursday Galloway declared, "We would certainly look at their offer".

Galloway refused to implicitly comment on the pending proposal by neighbours, Rssing Uranium, in which the Rio Tinto-owned subsidiary has offered to build a conveyor belt for the further processing of Swakop's products in return for a stake in the Australian-controlled company.

"It's up to Rssing to prove to us whether there are synergies in putting up that conveyor belt, but we do not want to comment on the proposals of individual companies," he said.

Extract says it has received massive interest from bidders who want to invest in the project, and an advisor has been appointed to look at and assess all bids trickling in, to identify suitable partners.

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